Day 3: I Am Afraid I Have Told People More About The Fun of My Sin Than the Effects of It

Hang on....this is going to be rough...I've struggled over this one more than anything I have ever written.  **Disclaimer** There will be some content that may not be suitable for all ages.  Satan has whispered in my ear so much about writing this....about the talk that may happen at churches I've attended before...and phone calls for the sole purpose of gossiping about my revelations.  However, God has told me it needs to be said.

Day 3:  I Am Afraid I Have Told People More About The Fun of My Sin Than the Effects of It

I went through a period of time, as an adult, where I definitely was living for self....intending to please no one but me.  I didn't pick up my Bible for almost a year....and prayer was a stranger to me.  I didn't go to church, totally engrossed in my bitterness and anger.  This played out in many different ways, but probably the most obvious was my lifestyle.

Even though that is not my life anymore, the memories don't leave.  Often, I have found myself telling others with great detail and humor, about those times.  Pub crawls with strangers, blowing thousands of some guy's money at a casino,  "foody-calls" (I'm not explaining that), one night stands, partying with people that blew in one night more money than I will ever make....I could go on and on.  A ton of experiences...some more embarrassing than others.  I have even found myself randomly distracted by reliving some of those moments in my mind.  I can't change the past.....but I believe there is a fine line between telling about it for teaching or counseling purposes and glorifying the life I was living.  There is a difference between remembering some of those memories in my mind to keep me from making the same mistakes and dwelling on or reliving them in the privacy of my mind.  You know that phrase, "I have some skeletons in my closet"?  Well, this girl has a small village in her closet.  Mistakes, bad choices, sin, shame....so many things that did nothing but hinder the purpose He designed me for.  You need to know something....if you, as a Christian, have followed a similar path in your life and never experienced the chastisement of God...you better check your heart.  The Word is so clear that there are consequences and we reap what we sow.  It's not a "Hahaha, heathen" moment where God just wants to obliterate us for our indiscretions. It's an,  "I love you and I can't take away the effects of your sin" moment for Him.  It's impossible to get by or dodge the consequences.....you may not see them at first....but the day will come, and it will hit you like a ton  of bricks.

I remember that day.  I was sitting in the oncologists office and had just been handed a death sentence.  Third stage lymphoma and fourth stage tongue cancer. The lymphoma was a secondary cancer caused by the tongue cancer.  They had found a lesion at the right side base of my tongue.  That cancer had found it's way into my lymph nodes.  It had wrapped all the way around my jugular vein and had eaten into my sternocleidomastoid muscle. I was going to have to start with surgery.  A radical right neck dissection.  They would be cutting down the right side of my head, behind the ear, straight down to my collar bone and across to the center of  my neck.  My face and neck would be pulled back so they could remove the muscle and attempt to strip the cancer from the vein.  They would be removing the right side of the base of my tongue. My lymph nodes would be removed.  A chest port and a stomach tube would be put in place to help me with the barrage of chemo and radiation that would have to follow.  My face would look different.  My voice would change.  I would not be likely to be able to sing the same as before.  I would have no saliva glands.  More than likely I would lose my hair ....and my teeth.  If and only if everything went 100% perfect....I would have a 15% chance of living.  Do you know what causes 98% of all head and neck cancers?  Alcohol and cigarettes.  I told my doctor that made no sense.  While I may have had a drink or two in my life and maybe a couple of cigarettes...I wasn't and alcoholic or an addict.  He then told me that everyone's body is different....and one or two cigarettes in my body may have had the effect that years of smoking may have had on another.  He did look a little puzzled, though.  He knew I was a Christian because we had talked about church before.  He said that there was another possibility, but he didn't think it would apply to me.  He said that there was a case study going on and I could be in it.  Everyone is aware that HPV (a sexually transmitted disease) can cause cervical cancer.  However, they were finding that head and neck cancers were becoming common at an alarming rate with 35-50 year old females.  The cause? Their hypothesis....HPV.  Women contracting HPV cells orally...and those cells mutating into head and neck cancers.  I began to protest and made it very clear that I was happily married, but had been tested prior to marriage, and I certainly didn't have any STD's.  According to the doctor, you could test negative and be negative for it in the genital area....but there wasn't really a good test for oral cells.  He then put me in a room with a nurse.  She had a little notepad and a pencil.  She said that in order to help them collect accurate results, they would need the name of all of my partners.  Now, I had experienced sexual abuse....but that had been years ago and pretty much unrelated.  She needed all my partners since I have been an adult....it occurred to me she was going to need more paper.

I'm not saying that every person diagnosed with cancer is experiencing chastisement for their sins.....but I do believe my sin caused mine.  In fact...it almost killed me.  I'm not supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be dead.  So there it is....the whole nasty, ugly truth about the effects of my sin.  There is not one moment of that time that was worth the excruciating pain of my surgery.  Nothing funny about it, that helped me through the sickness of chemo and radiation.  Not one second that was worth watching my children cry and beg me not to die and leave them.  None of it was worth the consequences....none of it.  Friends, please please hear me...

I must leave you with this one thing.   Sin is no laughing matter....but where ever it exists, grace abounds more.  I'm alive and forgiven, but my face looks different.  I'm in remission and have received mercy, but I can't sing like I use to.  I sacrificed some things for temporary pleasure.  That pornography is not worth your marriage.  Your reputation is way more valuable than a one night stand.  That life you may take is far more valuable to someone than that last beer will ever be to you.  We don't have to live our lives with spiritual scars....signs of sin's wreckage in our life. Come home friend....He loves you and His closet has no skeletons....it's full of grace and mercy.